NASA's shuttle program has come to successful end. You may have seen it in the news, online, or seen some of the amazing pictures like the one I have shown to the right, but the final destinations for both the Enterprise shuttle (to the right) and Discovery have been set.Discovery was transported via a modified 747 to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum, taking the place on the Enterprise. Discovery took the place because it had actually been in space, whereas Enterprise had not. Enterprise ended up at the Intrepid museum in New York, marking the complete end to NASA's shuttle program. So, what's next for NASA?
In a news release posted by NASA 2 weeks ago, "The agency is moving forward with an ambitious plan to develop cutting-edge space technologies to advance human and robotic exploration, reach new destinations, and launch revolutionary science missions". In fact, the New Horizons spacecraft that was launched in 2006 will get us the first flyby of the planet-that-was, Pluto (in only 1169 days). This scientific mission should be an indicator of what NASA is capable of. I fully believe that we should put the time, money, and effort into exploring the final frontier.
There are many things out there in the unknown that we are capable to making become known, including possible habitable planets. In fact, the number of these habitable planets have increased by the billions. These kind of discoveries and explorations should be enough to continue funding NASA, and hopefully something can become just as important as the shuttle program was 50 years ago.
Very interesting post Nate. I think you are correct in saying that "exploring the final frontier" is necessary and I think it could yield very valuable research. I think that the possibilities are truly endless and the unknown that we have the possibility to make known could be extremely important for our future as a planet, seeing as so many crises are evidently approaching in the near future (water and energy are just a few). On a different note, our nation has always prided itself on being cutting edge when it comes to extraterrestrial research and exploration, so I think continued efforts are necessary to maintain that idea.
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